Last night, I posted the commentary that I wrote after seeing a preview of the PBS Frontline show on Michelle Rhee.

This morning, I realized that my favorite paragraph was deleted, presumably to save space. It was this:

” She leads by threats and coercion, never by inspiration or example. She personifies the Ice Queen, a woman who is charming but cold, cruel, and heartless, even proud that she lacks even an ounce of compassion for those whose careers she is terminating. She is doing it all ‘for the children.'”

I am sorry this was cut. I think this is important because it goes to the heart of Rhee’s education policies. She believes that a good leader must be cold and hard and that leadership consists of making hard decisions with no regrets. She thinks that those who work for her can be frightened into compliance and, acting in fear, will produce the right results.

When the camera shows her firing a principal, we see a cruel, affectless face, a person utterly lacking in empathy. Yes, sometimes people must be fired, but should there not be some expression of regret? One should feel some regret about terminating another person’s career, cutting off their livelihood, sending them away without a job. Is kindness really such an obsolete character trait?

This is a poor model for leadership. Great leaders inspire, not coerce. It is also a poor model for educators, who can’t fire the children who don’t measure up.

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RHEE IS THE PROBLEM IN EDUCATION TODAY. NOT THE SOLUTION.
She want to make teaching positions like those of salesmen. Just hire teachers and burn them out in a few years. Then fire them and hire new warm bodies.
She has said on the record many times that teaching should be looked upon as only a three or four year career. It is a temp job people should take before going on to other careers.
This employment philosophy is never brought out in her bios.

Her mother’s concerns were well-founded. However, Rhee responded with a smile and informed us that these same traits were an asset to doing her job of cleaning up and firing educators in DC. Spoken like a true sociopath. Remember the book ‘I’m OK, you’re not OK’? She lives by the motto!

These traits are very much shared by the supt. of the district from which I just retired. His education is an MBA from Harvard, so you can imagine his perspective. The major difference is that he insulates himself and has others do his dirty work. First thing he did was remove about 8 principals from “underperforming schools”, which were almost all in low socioeconomic areas. Almost all veteran principals have now ebeen replaced (vice principals, also). This is in the fourth largest school district in California.

He has told site administrators to put stress on teachers (to increase test scores), and brags about all of the ineffective teachers and administrators he’s gotten rid of. He started his own (elementary) charter within the district, in which he does not allow union teachers, and it is believed he plans to expand this to as many as eight schools.

This was brought up on a live chat (FrontLine). A response:
Andrew Rotherham:
To be blunt, that’s illustrative of how bereft of seriousness much of what passes for our national education conversation is. Of course it’s more complicated than that and everyone but the dittoheads gets that.

My former principal was a person had an affectless face as well; her modus operandi was to praise rarely, and if she did, a “but” always followed. After two years, I finally decided that falling on my sword every day for the students would eventually kill me. That’s why she’s my former principal.

The sooner we can get people like that out of our nurturing profession, the better. You don’t have to be a jerk to evoke excellence.